MCC's decision to purchase the Regent and Plaza theatres as part of the City Square project was one of the factors that, ironically, ensured the theatres' survival. The Council's plans for the City Square were dependent on the redevelopment of the Regent site; while the future of the Regent remained unresolved the Council was unable to move forward with the City Square. Community groups seized on the opportunity presented by the Council's 'clean break' and the campaign to save the Regent and Plaza theatres began.

The Decade of Preservation
The campaign to save the theatres could not have come at a better time in the history of the preservation movement. The 1970s were characterised by a renewed interest in historic buildings, not only by members of the wider community but also by some in the State and Federal Governments. Membership of the National Trust had expanded to include younger professionals, and some residents groups had formed in an effort to protect their streets and suburbs from what they perceived to be unnecessary development. In an effort to encourage the preservation of the nation's built heritage, the Victorian branch of the National Trust had drafted a heritage bill in 1969 and presented it to the State Government. When the Government failed to act on this bill, the Trust put pressure on the State opposition. In 1972 Rupert Hamer became Premier and Minister of the Arts, and by the end of 1973 an amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act, known as the Historic Buildings Bill, was introduced into State Parliament and passed in May 1974. In an article on the development of heritage legislation, Sheryl Yelland has argued that this Victorian legislation was far from perfect.¹³ But it was important as the first of a series of acts passed in State and Federal parliament aimed at protecting sites of architectural significance. On a Federal level, Prime Minister Whitlam, whose Labor Party had come to office in 1972, announced the formation of a Committee of Inquiry into the National Estate. Submissions were received from individuals and groups around the country and the subsequent report recommended greater government involvement - to match the interest of the community - in issues of preservation.¹⁴

In Melbourne, 1973 was a tumultuous year in the preservation wars. When the Commercial Bank of Australia (CBA) announced that it intended to redevelop its building in Collins Street - which included an historic banking chamber dating back to the 1890s - the National Trust mounted a public campaign to prevent its demolition, beginning with the listing of the chamber on its register of historic buildings. The Trust encouraged supporters to sign petitions objecting to the proposal, and in a three-week period had gathered the support of more than 150,000 people.¹⁵ The Australian Building Construction Employees & Builders Labourers Federation, under the leadership of Norm Gallagher, lent its support to the campaign by placing a black ban on any demolition of the building. As a result of the Trust's campaign, Premier Hamer announced a Committee of Inquiry in October 1973 to investigate the feasibility of retaining the banking chamber. To the relief of the Trust's supporters, the inquiry recommended that the banking chamber remain.¹⁶

While the National Trust took a proactive approach to the preservation of the CBA banking chamber, it was less vigorous in its response to the fate of the Regent and Plaza theatres. As Graeme Davison writes, the Trust 'vacillated on the issue' by adding, removing and then reinstating the theatres on its register of twentieth-century buildings. Davison argues that the Trust 'struggled to reconcile its belated support for the Regent with its traditional adherence to canons of "good taste"'.¹⁷ It was not the Trust who fronted the campaign, he writes, but

a wider coalition of trade unionists, especially theatrical and building industry employees, show business celebrities and interested members of the public.¹⁸

The Save the Regent Theatre Committee was the key group within this coalition, having formed in the early years after the closure of the Plaza and Regent in 1970. The group comprised former employees of the theatres and members of the Theatre Organ Society of Australia (TOSA), including industrial designer Robert Laidlaw and Ian Williams. Williams, like Laidlaw a member of TOSA, began his career at the Regent Theatre in May 1949 and later became Assistant Manager of the theatre. Although not part of the initial group, Loris Webster was the only woman on the Committee and soon became its public face. Webster, who together with her husband ran the Wild Cherry restaurant a few doors up from the Regent, was prompted by the public response to the closure of the theatres and offered her assistance to the Committee. People would often comment to her, she said, that they had never been asked for their views about the Regent. The public didn't want to see it go. Webster believed the only way the theatres could be saved was as the result of a political decision.¹⁹ To this end, she enlisted the support of Norm Gallagher. At one of the Committee's audio-visual nights, which was organised to gather support for the campaign, Gallagher agreed to put a black ban on the demolition of the Regent and Plaza, commenting that he had once worked at the Regent as a 'lolly boy'.²⁰ Union bans also extended to other buildings on the site, including Wentworth House.

The building unions played a prominent role in the preservation battles of the 1970s. In Sydney, the Builders Labourers Federation, under the leadership of Jack Mundey, had instigated a 'green ban' campaign. In a history of this movement, Meredith Burgmann states that the union's guiding principle was 'that workers had a right to insist that their labour not be used in harmful ways'.²¹ In 1972 the union became involved in a campaign to save two of Sydney's theatres - Francis W. Thring's Regent, then owned by JC Williamson Ltd, and the Theatre Royal. The Save the Regent Theatre Committee and the Save the Theatre Royal Committee joined forces from 6 November 1972 to form a group known as Save Sydney's Theatres Committee. The campaign to save the Sydney Regent was initially successful, but by the 1990s the theatre had fallen victim to development and was demolished.²²

Press reports regarding the fate of the Melbourne Regent criticised the involvement of the union. The editor of the Melbourne Herald argued that

Mr Gallagher seems less concerned with the fate of the Regent than with a power play. There is no room in our society for such strong-arm tactics.²³

The Regent was not the only site affected by a union black ban. A booklet announcing a 'green ban' gallery at Trades Hall lists numerous buildings in Melbourne, including Tasma Terrace, the Windsor Hotel, the Princess Theatre, and the City Baths.²⁴ During a Committee of Inquiry in 1975 the MCC questioned Gallagher's motives for getting involved in the campaign, claiming that the union had placed the ban on the Regent because the Council had closed a swimming pool in Batman Avenue.²⁵ The union booklet doesn't dispute the connection. Whatever the union's motives, it can be argued that the black ban Gallagher placed on the Regent's demolition, together with the efforts of the Save the Regent Theatre Committee, were responsible for the theatre's initial survival. Without them, demolition may well have gone ahead and the battle would have been lost before it even began.

In August 1973 the Save the Regent Theatre Committee received unexpected support from Premier Rupert Hamer. According to Frank Van Straten, Hamer had commented that he wished to see the Regent preserved, 'recalling fondly that it was at the Regent that he and his wife had courted'.²⁶ Supporters, including Committee members Laidlaw and Williams, immediately began writing to the Premier thanking him for his comments and urging him to resolve the issue.²⁷ At the time that Hamer made these remarks, discussions were taking place between MCC and the State Government over the location of the proposed concert hall for the Arts Centre. The Council-owned site at Snowden Gardens was favoured, but, as Vicki Fairfax notes, difficulties with the Council prompted Hamer's suggestion that the Regent Theatre be converted into a concert hall instead.²⁸